In October of last year, a report from StreamElements, in collaboration with StreamHatchet, showed Microsoft"s Mixer accounting for around 1% of the streaming market, clearly overshadowed by Google"s YouTube and Amazon"s Twitch. This year, StreamElements has partnered with Arsenal.gg for a new report that sheds light on how the market has evolved in 2019, and it has good news for Microsoft and Facebook alike.
Both Mixer and Facebook Gaming reached a market share of 3% in the streaming wars, slowly chipping away at Twitch and YouTube"s dominance. Last year, both platforms were at 1%, while Twitch dominated with 75% of the market. Google was sitting comfortably in between at 22%. Now, while the overall picture hasn"t changed that much, Twitch has dropped to 73% and YouTube to 21%.
Every player in this game has made some investments in content this year, with Mixer stealing streamers like Ninja and Shroud from Twitch, and Facebook Gaming acquiring creators like DisguisedToast and ZeRo. YouTube has also snatched up a couple of streamers from Amazon"s platform, but Twitch has taken matters into its own hands by locking in some of its more prominent creators, too. All of these changes, though, have yet to make a big impact in market share, and the growth trends in this report were observed before these contracts started making the news.
It"s worth noting, of course, that in terms of total watch time, every platform grew in 2019, a natural result of this being a relatively new market. Being the smallest of the players on the market, Mixer and Facebook Gaming saw the biggest growth in percentages, and YouTube grew the least.
The report covers many aspects of the streaming space, but another big takeaway is that Fortnite has clearly declined in popularity in 2018, losing 28% of its watch time on Twitch from last year and falling to second place. League of Legends, which was the most-watched game seven years running prior to Fortnite"s booming success, has taken back the leading spot. The report also notes the continued growth of non-gaming categories, with Just Chatting (previously known as IRL) and ASMR categories being notable examples.
If you"d like to learn more about the state of the streaming market, you can read the summary blog post from StreamElements here, or download the full report.